


Holy, Cold, and Still

by Crowgirl



Series: On the Strength of the Evidence [19]
Category: Grantchester (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Domestic, Established Relationship, Exes, Illnesses, M/M, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:03:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9283655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: Against his will, Geordie is aware of feeling grudgingly sorry for her.





	

‘For Christ’s sake, man,’ Geordie says, grabbing Sidney’s shoulders and steering him towards the back stairs. ‘Go to bed.’

‘But I--’ Sidney can’t finish the sentence without coughing and Geordie gives him a shove up the stairs just as the front doorbell rings. ‘But the bell--’ Sidney makes a move towards coming back down to the hall and Geordie blocks the way, one hand on the newell post, the other planted flat on the wall and glares up at him.

‘You. Bed. Now. This is why you have that bloody useless curate of yours.’

‘He’s not bloody useless,’ Sidney protests, fishing a crumpled and much-used handkerchief out of his pocket.

‘Then let him make himself useful.’ Geordie points up the stairs. ‘Bed.’

Sidney sneezes and goes, plodding upwards step by step, just as Geordie hears the front door open. There’s a quiet exchange -- Mrs Maguire’s voice, not Leonard’s -- and then the door closes again. The postman, maybe; nothing important at all.

Mrs Maguire appears at the end of the hall. ‘And where’s Mr Chambers?’

‘In bed. Where he ought to have been two days ago.’

Her eyebrows raise slightly but she doesn’t protest. ‘Mrs Hopkins is here to see him.’

‘Well.’ Geordie shrugs and picks his scarf and hat off the stair bannister. ‘She can’t.’ 

Mrs Maguire folds her hands over the front of her apron. ‘She’s not going to like that.’

Geordie bites back some acid words on exactly what Amanda Hopkins can do with what she doesn’t like and shrugs again, tucking the ends of his scarf under his coat and buttoning it. ‘I can’t help that.’

‘What’s the trouble, Mrs M?’ Leonard appears through the back door, stamping wet snow off his shoes and pulling off his coat. ‘Hello, Inspector.’

Geordie acknowledges him with a nod and is on the point of slipping out the back door when he hears Leonard’s groan of dismay. ‘Oh, say it’s Mrs Williams, Mrs Maguire, do, please. I’d rather argue with her over choir stall decorations a thousand times than--’ He bites back whatever he had been about to say and sighs, then shrugs his shoulders back and shakes his head, and hands his snowy coat to Mrs Maguire. ‘Ah, well. These things come to try us.’

‘So they do, Mr Finch,’ Mrs Maguire says, shaking the coat out briskly and giving him a sharp nod. ‘So they do.’ 

Geordie glances between Leonard and the back door and makes a snap decision. ‘Come on. If you can shift her, I can give her a lift back into town.’

Leonard glances at him with unaffected surprise before professionalism takes over. ‘I -- well -- thank you. That’s very kind of you, er--’

Leonard hesitates and Geordie feels a momentary pang of something like guilt. He had never gone out of his way to be friendly to the lad but surely he had never been as terrifying as all _that._ He resists the urge to stick his hand out for a shake as if they were just now meeting. ‘Geordie. You might as well.’ 

* * *

Amanda is sitting neatly in the middle of the settee in front of the large garden window, her gloved hands clasped in her lap, a woolen coat with a glossy fur collar on the cushions beside her. She stands up as the two of them enter the room. ‘Oh, I -- hello, Leonard, Mr Keating--’ She doesn’t offer to shake hands with either of them and Geordie’s malicious enough to wish that Caroline were here to deal with her on her own terms. ‘I was -- hoping to see Sidney--?’ Her voice rises slightly as her words trail into silence and she tilts her head, giving them the birdlike smile Geordie’s sure she’s been told is charming but always reminds him of a porcelain doll-head posed in a shop window right down to the precise line of her lipstick. 

‘He’s ill, I’m afraid, Mrs Hopkins,’ Leonard says and is immediately carried away on a tide of concern; real or forced, Geordie can’t tell. Leonard waits patiently until she winds herself down and then says, ‘Please don’t concern yourself -- it’s just the ‘flu that’s been going around, I’m sure he’ll be fine in a few days. He just needs a little rest.’ 

Mrs Maguire appears in the door of the sitting room, a pitcher of steaming water in one hand. She takes in the scene and sniffs. ‘I’m taking this up to him now; nothing better than a good steam for a cold. You had best be off yourself, Mrs Hopkins and you, Inspector, unless you fancy a week in bed.’ She turns on her heel and vanishes up the stairs.

Amanda stares after her with a slightly open mouth for a minute, then closes her mouth with a snap. ‘That woman ceases to be a joke.’ 

‘Let me give you a lift back into town, Mrs Hopkins,’ Geordie says, stepping forward and picking up her coat before Leonard can say anything. It takes some effort to summon up what patience he has left at the end of a long week. He’s never been very good at soothing the ruffled feathers of -- well, anyone at all, really, but he’ll get this woman out of this house if it’s the last thing he does. 

* * *

Amanda is silent as he shepherds her to the car through the blowing snow, opens the door, lets her settle herself in the front seat. She says nothing as he clears the windscreen and starts the engine, testing the snowy ground carefully under the tires before they reach the road. The gravel of the vicarage drive is likely to give the best traction he’ll find until they get out of the village but the snow is dry and fluffy and there’s no ice beneath.

‘Mr Keating.’

‘Mrs Hopkins,’ he responds automatically, peering through the clearing made by the wipers.

‘I’ve noticed that--’ She pauses and doesn’t start to speak again.

Geordie’s happy enough for her to be silent; he doesn’t know her very well, only what hints Sidney has let drop here and there, and none of those incline him to want to know her better. 

Whatever relationship she thinks she has with Sidney-- well, it _isn’t_ his business, honestly and he grits his teeth against the remembrance of how many times he’s had to tell himself that. It isn’t his business and Sidney has done his absolute damnedest to prove to Geordie that from his end, at least, there’s no business _there_. So if for no other reason than out of respect to Sidney, Geordie should believe it.

Not to mention, Geordie thinks, that Amanda’s a married woman so showing up to tease the vicar shouldn’t really be _her_ business, either. It’s an uncharitable thought, he knows, but charity is Sidney’s look-out not his. He can either waste time trying to be charitable to this woman or he can keep his own jealousy in check.

‘I can’t help but notice that since you and Sidney started spending -- so much time together, he seems -- he seems --’

Geordie turns carefully onto the main road and sends up a brief prayer of thanks -- if he’s still allowed to do that given what he and the vicar get up to -- that the drive can only be another fifteen minutes at worst. ‘Where would you like me to drop you, Mrs Hopkins?’

‘Different.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Sidney seems -- different. These days. From -- from how he used to be.’

‘Well,’ Geordie temporizes and gives the car a little more gas. ‘You’ve known him for a few years, haven’t you? People change.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, but --’

Against his will, Geordie is aware of feeling grudgingly sorry for her. She’s feeling her way around the edges of something she knows is there but can’t put words to and he often feels he spends most of his working life like that. And that’s to say nothing of the last year with Sidney before he had forced himself to admit, at first only to himself, that he knew precisely what the “something” was and how to describe it. 

It isn’t as though he can enlighten her -- “So what you're driving at is that you can’t get a rise out of your old boy-friend anymore and I think I can tell you why---” -- or even, if he’s honest with himself, that he wants to. Perhaps he should advise her to visit Cathy, get a few things cleared up. He swallows back a hysterical laugh at the thought. Not that Cathy wouldn’t -- and take pleasure in taking the woman down a peg -- but he’s not sure either of them, to say nothing of himself and Sidney, would survive the fall-out. He can see the last turn into the streets near the station ahead. 

Amanda makes as if to speak again, then lets out a long breath and raises a gloved hand to point. ‘Please, just -- drop me there. I can call my husband from the tea-shop on the corner.’

‘You’re welcome to use the phone at the station if you’d like,’ Geordie offers and then wishes he hadn’t as she laughs, a brittle, sharp sound. ‘Sidney may have developed a taste for the police station; I have not. The corner will be fine, thank you.’

* * *

Geordie pulls in to the curb and gets out to open her door, turning his collar up against the snow. It’s lightening up quickly, the flakes coming more slowly. He opens the door and holds out a hand, a reflex more than anything else. She lets the very tips of her fingers touch his palm and steps out onto the pavement. ‘Thank you.’ 

He slams the door shut and turns to say a polite goodbye to find Amanda adjusting her hat and giving him the closest scrutiny he’s had to endure since the first time he turned up at the vicarage past midnight and woke Mrs Maguire. 

‘Well. Since you seem likely to see him before I do,’ she says finally, taking a deep breath and pulling the fur collar straight. ‘Please give Sidney my -- my best. I hope he’s back in health soon.’

‘I’m -- sure he will be,’ Geordie replies, the feeling of unwilling sympathy coming back as he looks at her. 

She looks tired and older than she should, the careful application of undoubtedly expensive make-up doing little to hide lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes that shouldn’t be there at her age. He can’t help her, not that she’d ever ask him to. Selfishly, he would like to find some way to tell her that Sidney can’t either so perhaps she could consider leaving him alone? but that’s not something he can do, much as he might like to. Either she figures it out for herself or Sidney sits her down for a chat but Geordie can’t help with either of those things.

‘Well. Goodbye, Inspector.’ She gives him an unexpectedly firm handshake and turns, walking quickly away down the street.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my darling betas, [elizajane](http://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane) and [Kivrin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin) who I sincerely _hope_ will post her own spin on this.
> 
>  **Edit: AND SHE DID![Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9285497)**.
> 
>  
> 
> **Edit: And this piece now has a prequel (sort of?) When Kivrin was beta'ing _Holy, Cold, and Still_ for me, she put a note to this sentence to say she wanted the backstory: "He slams the door shut and turns to say a polite goodbye to find Amanda adjusting her hat and giving him the closest scrutiny he’s had to endure since the first time he turned up at the vicarage past midnight and woke Mrs Maguire." [So I wrote the backstory.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9534416/preview)**
> 
>  
> 
> Title from _[Antony and Cleopatra](http://www.bartleby.com/70/4526.html)_.
> 
> This piece now has a brief follow-up courtesy of the Twelvetide Drabbles 2017 challenge: [Things We Let Go](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13270689).


End file.
